ken burns

ken burns

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - The premiere of Ken Burns' new
documentary series "The War" brought in 7.3 million
viewers Sunday night, PBS said.

The first episode of the multipart documentary averaged a 5.0 household
rating/7 share in the top 56 "metered" markets,
according to preliminary estimates released Monday by Nielsen Media
Research.

That is on par with the opener of Burns' 1994 highly rated documentary
series for PBS' "Baseball," which had a 5.1 household
rating. (The 1990 premiere of Burns' "The Civil War" brought in a 9.0
rating.)

"The War" ran between 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. against season premieres on
CBS and Fox, as well as a heavily watched
"Sunday Night Football" matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and the
Chicago Bears. At least 15.5 million people tuned in
for some of the telecast, PBS said.

With the addition of a second airing nationwide, the first episode
averaged 18.7 million viewers total, PBS said. The first
episode was particularly strong in such markets as Minneapolis-St. Paul,
Seattle, San Francisco and New York.